There’s no place like home. 

   No sentence reaches my heart with greater strength, ease, and clarity; no statement exceeds its ring of truth.

   The importance of sanctuary and safety at home was made clear to the millions who – during the no-vaccine time of the pandemic’s danger – were reminded there is no place like home.

   It was Glinda, the Good Witch of the North in the Wizard of Oz, who urged Dorothy to click her the heels of her ruby slippers and keep thinking, “There’s no place like home.” 

   In the Wizard of Oz – and in my heart – home means a perpetually safe, love-filled, and nurturing place. 

   The 1939 film starring Judy Garland, Ray Bolger, Frank Morgan, Bert Lahr, Billie Burke, and Margaret Hamilton, is a musical adaptation of L. Frank Baum’s 1900 children’s novel: “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.”

    Life is a savvy teacher. It can teach us things we don’t know and remind us of things we may have lost sight of. After all, we’re human. And no human has ever been in the same room with perfection. 

   Late last year, December 8 to be exact, my beautiful-hearted black-lab mix, Charley, went to sleep forever at the veterinarian office while I held his head in my hands and pressed my face against his. Told him I loved him. Thanked him. We shared life for 14 and a half years. I adopted him the day he turned six weeks old. We were best friends.

   I’m 68 and on social security. A fixed income they call it. I was stunned to learn adoption fees for dogs run from $250 to $800, these days. Not an easy reach for many, myself included. 

   Then, as you’re about to learn, life decided to remind me there’s no place like home. 

   The reminder began with a knock on my door. When I opened the door, three of my neighbors were standing there. John and Maureen, a married couple I talked with from time to time when we walked our dogs. They have two Brittany Spaniels. The other was Mary. She and her sister Maggie live just down the hall from me.     

   All of us are seniors.

   They’d stopped by to see how I was doing after Charley’s death. I invited them in. They asked if I was thinking about getting another dog. I said I was, and had one dog with an adoption fee of $375 in mind. 

   And then, life proceeded with its lesson.

   John: “Why don’t we split it with you?”

   Me: “Friends have helped me with some of the fee cost.” 

   John: “That’s not what I asked you. Why don’t we split it with you.” His response reminded me of my father.

   The next day, there was an envelope with $200 in it slipped under my door, from John and Maureen.

   There’s no place like home.